Data packets transferred across computer networks can contain various indicators to notify network equipment, such as gateways and routers, as to status and properties of the data. One indicator is a quality-of-service (QoS) indicator, the value of which indicates to network equipment the level of service a data packet should receive. This can be useful in packet-based networks, such as the Internet, where data packet transmission times are highly variable and dependent upon traffic patterns and congestion. The level of service correlating to a particular quality-of-service indicator value can be based upon many factors, some of which include network congestion status, data traffic type (i.e. video or email), or by agreement between the network provider and the data originator or recipient.
One example quality-of-service indicator is the Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) field in the header of IP data packets. Another example is the Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) prefix which can contain a quality-of-service indicator. These quality-of-service indicators can indicate to network equipment a level of service that a data packet should receive when passing through such network equipment.